$49 fee for USATT membership

j-bo wrote: You don't mind the fee's...but joe the club player obviously does, as does a lot of people who join for a year or maybe 2. They are not being retained. It doesn't matter to those that have TT in their blood. Numbers? Can only go by the ratings page: Over the last year, there were 7147 players. Of that, the current number of players are 5341.

Correct, but misleading.  The USATT has 7321 current members.  That means they have about 2000 current members who haven't played in the last year.

j-bo wrote: Over the past 2 years, there were 10592 players. Of that, the current number of players is 6006. Over 5 year period, there were 20036 players. Current number of players over this period is 6645.

Players drop in and drop out.  Some players in the stats are are newbies who probably never came back.  Some are foreigners who never were or would be members.   The number of current members is over 7300.  That means we have about 650 members who haven't played a tournament in five years.

j-bo wrote: Obviously.. something is wrong with the system. Lowering fee's could be a step in the right direction to retain those players that aren't rejoining.

The fact that we have low membership is all you need to know that something is not quite right.  The problem is finding out what exactly is not quite right.  I think you need to dig deeper to figure that out. It is probably a bunch of things.

This is all made more difficult because one of the USATT's main objectives is promoting high level international competition.  So do you abandon that for one year and put all of your effort into grassroots to build a base for the future?  I dunno. Maybe.

j-bo wrote: Magazine..make it online only. That eliminates the cost of printing and mailing.

I'm pretty sure the magazine covers its cost through ad revenue. 

j-bo wrote: There really needs to be a grass roots USATT committee to get schools to institute table tennis programs. What I see the best bet, is to start at the middle school level and high schools. The costs of startup are not that astronomical, and once the tables are purchased (maybe can get companies to cut great discount rates too) the cost to keep the program are minimal in the grand scheme of things. This will get more people involved in TT, which will increase membership into USATT.

I think getting TT into schools is a fine idea.  The question is "how?"

wturber said:  "Why would a club go to that much trouble for a mere $50?  Talk about a poor ROI. "

AcudaDave wrote: Someone should just put together a list of suggestions for how the USATT could lower the $49 membership fee. 1. One good suggestion I heard so far was to just have newbies purchase a playing permit. This is really a good idea since they can't win their giant RR or advance out of their RR group if they win it. Then the next tournament they play they can purchase the $49 membership knowing they can advance out of their group or win the giant RR since they have a rating (although it might be way too low). 2. Another suggestion might be to give 1st-timers a discount for their membership. Maybe a 50% discount for 1st-timers to help encourage more memberships. 3. Stop sending hard copies of magazines every 2 months to help reduce costs. Just provide copies of magazines online. You could make the online magazines viewable to current members only. 4. Other suggestions?

I really think the biggest problem is retaining the current members and getting those 1st year members to reup the following years. There already is a discount to new members, that's the $10 first time use fee option. Getting them to pay the $49 is the trick and getting them to do that year after year is the biggest issue.

But who really knows, as Jay said, all of the issues at hand on why people do what they do are hard to pinpoint.

Also as Jay said...USATT seems to be really concerned on the elite TT player and developing them. Takes money. But looking at their financials...seems they do a really poor job at getting grants/gifts, etc. USOC only gave about $200K last year. Not much to me.

As far as getting it in schools. You have to start somewhere, so throwing a bunch of money in "test" area's would be the start. It would take a committe of USATT folks to put together the program to pitch it to schools after first finding out what the rules/legalities(such as liability)/funding of whatever school district they are going to do this is.

What that program should entail is  open for discussion and there are a ton of different ways to accomplish the task. No use in going into all the possibilities if the USATT doesn't want to play.

Demonstrations to start out with to gauge interest might be a priority to see exactly where they should try this out.

Schools...schools...of course it's the best. I can say only one thing about this: parents's answer will be overwhelming; i did organize a class 2 years in a row with 2nd and 3rd grade pupils. We bought 4 tables and i asked no more than 12 kids. Both years 24 families had signed their kid up on the 1st day of enrollment.
Parents know that tt is one of the best sports for their child's development. They will sign their kid up if an after school program is available.
As usual the problem is 1)storage of tables 2)who can teach the tt class between 3 and 5pm?
I believe it can work with a business endeavor based on an after school program to pay the bills so there is a touch of baby sitting to it. The school buses dump the kids at the facility every day after school at 3:30 and busy parents pick them up before 7pm. A mix of sports and homework for the kids (2 sessions?). Parents will pay big money for that. Then the non-profit will make money with other people after 7pm with open play, leagues, private coaching etc...
The model can work.

fatt wrote: Schools...schools...of course it's the best. I can say only one thing about this: parents's answer will be overwhelming; i did organize a class 2 years in a row with 2nd and 3rd grade pupils. We bought 4 tables and i asked no more than 12 kids. Both years 24 families had signed their kid up on the 1st day of enrollment. Parents know that tt is one of the best sports for their child's development. They will sign their kid up if an after school program is available. As usual the problem is 1)storage of tables 2)who can teach the tt class between 3 and 5pm? I believe it can work with a business endeavor based on an after school program to pay the bills so there is a touch of baby sitting to it. The school buses dump the kids at the facility every day after school at 3:30 and busy parents pick them up before 7pm. A mix of sports and homework for the kids (2 sessions?). Parents will pay big money for that. Then the non-profit will make money with other people after 7pm with open play, leagues, private coaching etc... The model can work.

It would be handled no different than any other after school sport/band/drama/club etc.

Who teaches them? Well.. again..this is where the support and guidance from the USATT comes in. USATT provides the training materials to the teacher/parent who would like to take on that role. I would assume DVD training or online training classes would be the way to do so.

Storage of tables? Not hard to do. Even if it's foldem up and place on a back wall somewhere.

The cost of the tables will be the biggest issue to start out with. If you have a large school and have 50+ kids wanting to do this, you need plenty of tables and start up equipment. Also keeping them from being vandalized/broken/tore up is an issue at schools too.

Having a good and well thought out USATT program put together is key, along with USATT providing the materials (DVD's?) for the program, guidance on how to start inter-school play, guidance on how to train the students, "selling" the importance of the sport on how it affects the health and cognitive function of the students, and finally, equipment discounts available to the schools.

I've seen a bit of a success story as far as getting TT into schools courtesy of the work done by Table Tennis Minnesota (i.e. Mitch Seidenfeld and his helpers).  Basically, a High School TT championships event was created and run by TT Minnesota.  It started with a small number of high schools having a TT club activity, and each of these schools brought their team to the championship event.  The competition was structured to emphasize total team results, which helped to diffuse the big disparity between individual players abilities.  The result was that more people were included from a wide variety of skill levels, and they all contributed to their team, which made it more fun.

Bring TT to local schools?  Yes, our club tried it once before.

pgpg wrote: Slightly off-topic, but I think the best way for clubs to attract and especially retain new members is by having a League night. Even better if it counts for USATT or RC ratings. For someone new to the club it provides guaranteed playing time against opponents of  similar level, a chance to meet as many members as possible etc. No need for me to worry about who I am supposed to play here, or wondering whether I even get any playing time tonight etc.

Ive been involved with getting a few schools started with TT - both primary and high school.

I created a documentation on why TT is good for schools, especially school children.
Focusing on
- best brain sport
- improving child's eye sight
- improving reaction time
- ease of table tennis as a school sport for the school
- cost in getting started

So far it works.
Everyone knows what TT is and for them, seeing two pros play doesn't mean anything.
It is to get the school and parents to accept that TT is a good choice for them.

For example, today, I spent 2 hours at a school open day - about 200 to 300 new kids coming in.
Have a table, set up a robot and allow parents and kids to play.
The youngest kid was 4 years old and came back to the table about 3 times and asked to play.
Today I didn't prepared well enough - we only confirmed yesterday to take part in today's open day. But the response from today was more than I expected. The parents saw a bit of TT and the fun part and hopefully some kids will say, I want to try out.

Next time round, I'm going to make my above documentation to a 3 fold A4 brochure and list the key benefits of playing TT. I'm sure that will assist a lot.

fatt wrote: Schools...schools...of course it's the best. I can say only one thing about this: parents's answer will be overwhelming; i did organize a class 2 years in a row with 2nd and 3rd grade pupils. We bought 4 tables and i asked no more than 12 kids. Both years 24 families had signed their kid up on the 1st day of enrollment. Parents know that tt is one of the best sports for their child's development. They will sign their kid up if an after school program is available. As usual the problem is 1)storage of tables 2)who can teach the tt class between 3 and 5pm? I believe it can work with a business endeavor based on an after school program to pay the bills so there is a touch of baby sitting to it. The school buses dump the kids at the facility every day after school at 3:30 and busy parents pick them up before 7pm. A mix of sports and homework for the kids (2 sessions?). Parents will pay big money for that. Then the non-profit will make money with other people after 7pm with open play, leagues, private coaching etc... The model can work.

Sorry.. the SPTTC after school program isn't the direction I'm talking about...although it seems like a very good after school program they've put together, and should be for $450/month. What a great facility!

In schools, means.. in the public school system. Where schools have teams.....just like baseball/football, etc.

And to answer you ZApenholder..Why do we point fingers at the national body... USATT?

We pay our membership fees to them and expect them to grow the sport.

They should have the materials, expertise, political connections, equipment discount opportunities, and all the other stuff it takes to sway a school system to accept the program into the public schools.

USATT carries CLOUT and makes more sense for the school board to listen to the USATT  than James from the local TT club.

I agree...this is why I said USATT must be interested and active in trying this out or it's just blah blah blah words...which.. I don't understand WHY they wouldn't want to increase membership..adds $$ to their coffers for their elite player programs.

I would be happy to be the one to go talk to the schools..

However.. I don't have the expertise, materials, program knowledge, background, and all the skills of persuasiveness to accomplish the goal.


Edited by j-bo - 11/22/2013 at 10:38am

J-bo,

Some times learning comes from trying and failing.
Other methods including asking around, even asking overseas.

Its really taking 1 step at a time.
First ask question, go and identify the 5 Ws and then we can decide the H


Edited by ZApenholder - 11/22/2013 at 11:23am

skip3119 wrote: To paraphrase President Kennedy's famous speech: Ask not what USATT can do for you, ask what you can do for USATT. Oh my.

ZApenholder wrote: Recently, I took part in an ITTF level 1 coaching course training. During the end, a random discussion for coaching in schools and community took part. One of the course "students" (coaches) was asking for the provincial (our local body) table tennis to get more invovled with schools and issuing letters of recommenation and what not. He was saying there is tons of schools in his area that he can approach and since he is a retiree, he has time on his hand. This course happened last week. I heard the same statement 1 year ago already. So I actually replied to the group saying, you don't need our local body's backing to go into school, you don't need this and that from them, it is a private business/service that you are offering between you and the client/school. Yes, you can get letters from them, but that is something so easy. What is stopping you from making it happen? Now the local body is working with school sports body to set up leagues and stuff like that. But 1 year plan can take 10 years, if you know what i'm saying. Nothing stopping you for going into the school and start this extra mural activity